Mr. Fullarton admitted that they did. “But,” said he, “constant intercourse with such a man must ere long have its injurious effect. Indeed, I felt it my bounden duty to warn Mrs. Molyneux on the subject. I grieve to say she treated my admonition with a very unwarrantable levity.”
Mrs. Danvers’s sympathetic groan was promptly at the service of the speaker; fortunately, turning to thank her for it by a look, he missed detecting her pupil’s smile. She could fancy so well Fanny’s little moue, combining amusement, vexation, and impertinence, while undergoing the ecclesiastical censure.
“You must be merciful to Mrs. Molyneux,” she remarked, with a demure gravity that did her credit under the circumstances. “She is my greatest friend, you know. When a wife is so very fond of her husband, surely there is some excuse for her adopting his prejudices for and against people?”
The pastor brightened up suddenly: he had just recollected another fact to fire off against the bête noir.
“I forgot to tell you that Major Keene is much addicted to play, and, besides, is intimate with the Vicomte de Châteaumesnil. Noscitur a sociis.” The reverend man was an indifferent classic, but he had a way of flashing scraps out of grammars and Analecta Minora before women and others unlikely to be down upon him, as if they were quotations from some recondite author.
“You can not mean that cripple who is drawn about in a wheel-chair?” Cecil asked. “We saw him to-day, only for a moment, for he drew his cloak over his face as we passed. I never saw such a melancholy wreck, and I pitied him so much that I fear he will haunt me.”
Far deeper would have been the compassion had she guessed at the pang that shot straight to Armand’s heart as he veiled his blasted features and haggard eyes, feeling bitterly that such as he were not worthy to look upon her in the glory of her brilliant beauty.
“A notorious atheist and profligate,” was the 22 reply. “We can not regard his sore affliction in any other light than a judgment—a manifest judgment, dear Miss Tresilyan.”
There was grave disapproval and just a shade of contempt in the face of one of his hearers as she said, “The hand of God is laid so heavily there that man may surely forbear him.” But Mrs. Danvers struck in to her favorite’s rescue, rejoicing in an opportunity of displaying her partisanship.
“A judgment, of course. It would be sinful to doubt it. Besides, do not others suffer?” (She cast up her eyes here pointedly, as though she said, “There may be more perfect saints, but if you want a fair specimen of the fine old English martyr—me voici.”) “Cecil, my love, I wonder you did not perceive Major Keene’s true character at once. You were talking to him a good deal the other day.”